labor & delivery

When I last left you, I was about to leave the house for the hospital. It was Thursday, March 12. The pic to the right was taken right before we left.

We arrived around 6:00 pm and, although my contractions still weren't steady (and they never ended up being steady, even during the last hour), we were admitted to a room right away. The nurse who made the decision said, "Why mess up two beds (one in triage) when your water has already broken?" I was also soon to discover that we were the only people in the maternity ward at the time--no other babies were on their way quite yet. They got us into our room (a private one, where the labor, delivery, and recovery took place and where the baby stays with you the entire time you're there) and immediately got the belly band monitors on me, drew blood, and put an IV into me. They also did the horrible, no good, vaginal check to see how far along I was. My cervix was already 100% effaced ("You have the best/most ripe cervix I've seen in years," commented the nurse) but I was only dilated three centimeters. They asked me my plan (natural) and then it was up to me. To my body. To sit and wait.

And wait. And wait. And wait. Did I mention before in this blog that nothing goes as planned? Well, nothing in this labor and delivery went as planned.

I sat upright in the hospital bed waiting through the contractions, which, although a bit painful, were nothing that I couldn't handle. I sat through a few television shows, asked to have help getting up when I had to use the bathroom, and vomited each time I got out of bed or the glider, which I kicked Al out of eventually. Vomited violently. A lot. A lot more than just that burrito, Karen. The night is actually a blur, because I was trying to relax and get my rest. I dozed a lot and we barely spoke. My dad came around 11:00 pm even though I told him it would be quite a while; he said he wanted to be there for me (I think because mom couldn't be). He ended up taking the couch/bed that Al could have slept in, but probably wouldn't have. Al was by my side pretty much all night.

Those plans gone awry? Even though I thought my contractions might be getting stronger/more frequent, I never dilated between three and four centimeters on my own. Al and dad had gone to get a snack and warm up (I was so hot all night, that apparently they had the temp in the room down to fifty for me) around 2:00 am when the nurse and her assistant came in and said they had just spoken to my doctor about the lack of progress. He was concerned since my water had broken so many hours earlier and he didn't want infection to set in. I would have to use pitocin or consider a c-section if I didn't dilate more by 5:00 am. I wasn't happy with that news, but there wasn't much I could do besides hope and pray that I dilated. I didn't.

At 5:00 am, they started the pitocin drip. I was still going to try to go without any pain medication, wanting to drug my baby as little as possible. The contractions got stronger (not as painful as I'd imagined) and sometimes more steady, sometimes not (like I said, mine were never consistent) and I got more and more tired. The 7:00 am nurse talked me into some type of pain meds since I was still vomiting, extremely hot, and tired; she talked to my doc and he recommended the epidural over IV pain meds. He also gave me zofran (through my IV) for the nausea. The head of anesthesiology gave me my epidural, and the effects were almost immediate. For the next several hours, I flipped from side to side every half hour and felt contractions only in my butt. That's right, my butt. I had been feeling them all in my lower abdomen, but after the epidural I just felt the urge to--ahem, have a bowel movement--every time a contraction came along. And not too strongly, just--strangely.

Somewhere between 11:00 am and 11:30 am (a lot later than I had hoped/anticipated with the pitocin), the nurse finally let me start pushing through contractions. I was still on my sides at this point, and she explained to Al and I that the advantage of an epidural is that they can have you push and have the baby get much farther down before needing to get you into position to actually deliver. Almost immediately after I started pushing, the nurse told me she could see hair. And I started wondering where my doctor was. I ended up on my back with my legs in stirrups (and in Al's and the nurse's arms during every contraction) before the nurse really wanted me there, but I was getting too uncomfortable on my sides again. The nurse kept telling me she could see hair--the baby's head was right there--and still nothing seemed to happen when I pushed and my doctor did not do more than pop his head in and go back out. How long will this take?, I wondered.

At one point, things were going along in the same manner but my doctor was checking in. I had two contractions very close together and the nurse and doctor coached me through them. Pushing is one of those near impossible things they ask pregnant women to do, because they want you to take a deep breath, not exhale but push as hard as you can for ten seconds, keep up the pressure while you inhale deeply again (um, you didn't let me exhale...) and hold your breath again as you push as hard as you can for ten seconds. Then they have the audacity to tell you to relax inbetween. This time when I pushed, the doctor said, "Whoa, Rhonda! Where did that come from?" And immediately left to get his scrubs on. Seems that in those two contractions (this time, they had me pulling on my upper legs as well) I managed to get the baby to move quite a bit. I thought, Finally!, but it wasn't finally. Even with that big push, with the head "right there," with all the hair showing, I couldn't move the baby more. The doctor offered the use of the vacuum, and by this time I was so exhausted that I agreed immediately. I didn't think I had the strength to do it on my own.

When the time actually came, I wasn't expecting it. I couldn't understand why they kept telling me to "Push! Don't stop! Just push!" even though I wasn't having contractions any more, even though I could not breathe, even though I was in pain. I heard the doctor ask Al if he wanted to see the head coming out, I remember him looking and laughing, I remember someone asking me if I wanted to look (No! I just want this over with!) all while yelling at me not to stop pushing. I felt the head go through and felt like I couldn't push any more and they kept telling me I had to. Finally, at 12:47 pm, I thought I felt the entire baby plop out and gasped, Is it out? Can I stop?, and they were saying yes and putting a baby on top of me. They kept saying things like, "So much hair!" "So big!" and I couldn't see much besides a blurry slimy baby (no contacts or glasses at this point) and asked impatiently, "What is it?" The reply shocked me, made me happy, made me wish I had energy left to cry happy tears: "It's a girl!" I vaguely remember the doctor instructing Al to cut the umbilical cord, which I later discovered had been wrapped around her neck (thus the urgent yells to push).

For the next hour and a half, I felt like a bad mother since I was so drained I had almost no emotional response. I was happy, but enduring the additional pushes (and pushes on my stomach by the doctor and nurse) to get rid of the afterbirth and then to stitch me up (the doctor had given me an episiotomy without asking since I was tearing) was taking all of my strength. I had started feeling cold during the pushing sessions, and although they had adjusted the temp in the room to a "normal" sixty-five degrees and covered me as much as they could with warmed blankets, I was shaking uncontrollably for at least an hour or so after the delivery. My temp was ranging from 96.4 right before the baby was born and to 100.4 a couple of hours after birth, and I had to feed my baby girl within the hour of giving birth (she ate for forty-five minutes, and I found myself wishing the nurse would say she had to take her to give her a bath). So not the emotional response I expected of myself--Al cried and I didn't! But I'm so in love with her now that my response then doesn't matter.

So the details: On March 13 (yes, Friday the 13th, and I don't care anymore), Bridget Ella was born at 12:47 pm weighing in at 10 lbs, 8 ozs and 22 1/2 inches long. She's a beautiful baby girl, and I'll continue her/our story as soon as possible...but right now I should really try to wake up my sleepy girl and feed her. She sleeps so much more than I thought she would!